Three days passed after the military finally pulled out.
Three days of heightened checks, shortened tempers, boots and rifles crowding every corridor, until the tension felt suffocating.
Night settled over the Route in a way that felt almost deliberate, as if even darkness here followed a schedule.
Lanterns traced the paths in clean, even lines, light spaced with care, nothing accidental about it. The gardens were immaculate, rows cut with precision, soil turned and tended like every inch had been measured and planned.
Vines climbed their frames neatly. Greens grew in disciplined patches. The air smelled of damp earth and leaf and something faintly sweet, cultivated and contained.
Iyisha walked beside Cyborg at an unhurried pace, Malcolm a step behind her as always, quiet, watchful, his presence steady at her back.
Beyond the gardens were the barns.
Large. Solid. Full.
